N5200Pro Raid5 Expansion

[GeraintUK]

Hi All,

I've got a 5200Pro that I originally installed with 3x1Tb Hitachi drives and worked perfectly.

I then got close to running out of space, so have now purchased another 2 x 1Tb Hitachi drives that are identical to the original 3.
I wished to add the drives and expand the RAID5 set to now use all 5 drives as a single RAID 5 volume, but I can't see how to do it.

Is the EXPAND function only for replacing smaller drives to larger ones ? In my case only allowing to go from 3 drives (original RAID5 config) ?

Am I missing something here, or is it simply not possible to expand to all 5 drives without first copying off all the data (I have nowhere to put it all though), then deleting the array and recreating a new one with all 5 drives selected ?

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Kindest Regards
Geraint

[peterfu]

I'm not sure on the Pro version, but on the non pro You have to do first a raid migration and the a raid expansion.
b r
Peter

[GeraintUK]

Thanks Peter,

I think it is the same on the Pro as it's currently running a RAID 5 to RAID 5 migration.
It's just a little different from HP and Dell Raid Configs i'm used to.

Should know if it's all worked in about 10 more hours once it's finished it's migration

Regards
Geraint.

[Funkstar]

The software on both the N5200 and N5200Pro is identical. The only real difference is the faster processor and increased memory

[omega]

Indeed the software is identical, but not all parts of the software are enabled on the "normal" N5200, e.g. multiple RAID support and ISCSI.

Andreas

[Funkstar]

Ah yes. I forgot about the iSCSI of the Pro, and I didn't know the non-Pro didn't handle multiple RAID arrays. Thats good to know actually.

[gerhard911]

I am planning to do exactly this with an N5200 that is currently a 3 x 750 RAID5, taking it to a 5 x 750 array. Did you have a successful migration ? If so would you share with me your procedure ?

I planned to power off my N5200, install the drives and then power up and start the Migration process. I am assuming that it will appear as an option somewhere under Storage/Raid/Config. I have the Add New Disk as Spare set to Manual. I had read some have had issues with the additional space being added to Snapshot instead of the RAID array. Are there any tricks to avoid this ?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

[h0mersimps0n]

I am one of those people who had my additional (identical drive #4) drive space put in a GD SNAPSHOT drive when trying to add to my 3-drive RAID 5 array. I believe I did a migration but then couldn't do an expansion...

Currently I'm in the process of moving 500 gig off my 3 disk RAID 5 array onto the 4th drive spare to completely delete the array and start from scratch because all my attempts to reallocate the space from snapshot has failed..

I would LOVE to know if it's the FIRMWARE version (I'm using 1.00.10) that's doing this SNAPSHOT thing or what? Should we all move to the 5200pro 2.00.00 firmware even though we all have n5200 non-pro thecii?

What is the EXACT procedure that is suppose to work for adding a drive to an existing array?

Anyone notice a firmware pattern of causing the SNAPSHOT issue?

veryyyy frustating...

[gerhard911]

Thanks for your input. I am a little confused why people are talking about doing an Expansion following the Migration. I thought the Expansion process was for exchanging smaller drives for larger ones (ie 5 x 250MB -> 5 x 500MB).

[h0mersimps0n]

OH OH I just noticed a new 2.00.01 (official) release for the N5200. I'm heading to do that after I finish copying files and before I erase, rebuild and migrate my extra disk.

Keeping my fingers crossed that migration will work using 2.00.01 especially since I think the Thecus programmers noticed how confusing the "ADD A SPARE" drive thing was since they reportidly removed that option...

please please please please work... sigh

[Pellicle]

I have version 2.00.01 on my n5200 and I am unable to expand the raid due to the snapshot added when the Raid migration was done addiing an additional drive. This appears to be a serious bug in the Thecus firmware.

Thecus: Is there any update on this issue?

[jordi.c]

Hi Pellicle,

Can you first tell me what SNAPSHOT is, never seen it in the webinterface?

I see a lot of people have problems with adding an extra harddrive to their existing RAID array. I hope somebody of Thecus can tell us if it's possible yes or no before I'll give it a try .

KR.
Jordi

[gerhard911]

My Migration went fine (but it took @ 36 hours !). I went from a 3x750GB Raid 5 to a 5x750GB Raid5.

I am not sure why others are getting the additional space as Snapshot, but I did not. After powering the N5200 off and adding the two new drives, I started it back up and entered the Web Admin. Under storage I saw my two new drives.

From the Raid page I entered "Migration" and there was only only one migration option to select: Raid5 -> Raid5 so I clicked on that. All five of my drives were listed so I selected each of them under the "Migrate" column (perhaps selecting only the new drives leads to the issue with Snapshot ?).

The Migration process started up and after quite a few minutes I got a "% complete" number. Over about 18 hours or so this number increased gradually until it got to 100%. It then did something I did not expect and restarted at 0%. Initially I thought I had a problem but I forced myself to walk away and leave it alone for a while. When I checked back about an hour later I had 1.8% completed.

Still worried but encouraged that it looked to be progressing I let it run overnight. In the morning I had about 80% and it eventually finished with all of my drive space now included in the array.

edit - I am on firmware 1.00.08

[Thecus - Yvon]

Dear Pellicle,

If we unable to expand the raid due to the snapshot added, please mail to support@theucs.com we will help you to remove the snapshot, and make expand function work.

Yvon.

[Thecus - Yvon]

Dear Sir,

If we went to chang HDD number, as like 3*1TB to 5*1TB RAID5, need to do the RAID migration, since we insert the new HDD and into RAID migration page, the system woudl list all possible combination.

If we didn't change the HDD number but volume, as like 5*500GB to 5*1TB, it is RAID expansion, but the process would more complex, we need replace the HDD & rebuild the RAID 1 by 1, until all HDD replaced & rebuilded, just start the RAID expansion funciton.

Thus the RAID expansion would take long long to complete the jod, perhaps create a new RAID will be fatser....


Yvon.

[ccarey75]

I posted another thread before I found this one (sorry) - I've tried this on the new firmware 2.00.04 but the tick boxes are greyed out (disabled) in the raid migration menu

I'm adding a 5th disk to an existig 4 disk Raid5 array - the disk shows up in the "Migrate Raid mode" menu but I can't select it because the option is disabled.

The new disk is listed as:
Status - OK, "Used" is unticked but greyed out and nothing in the "available disk" column

How do I tell the N5200 to enable the new disk?